Sounds like blatent metagaming.

Yep.

Some mod should (and most likely will) do something about it.

It would be good if you posted their ID numbers in this thread.

How can you have a pre game alliance when you dont know who is going to be in the game with you?

Blatant cheating

Well, I did what the FAQ suggests and confronted the players in question. We'll see what they say.

I didn't think there was any hard rule against Metagaming.

it is looked upon very poorly by the community, and i believe that mods use discretion in addressing some very serious cases.

Yes. Pre-game alliances are not allowed. You can play with your friends but you have to be willing to stab them like you would any other player or you put the other players at an unfair disadvantage and it could ruin the game. Tight pre-game alliances have the same effect on games as multi accounters (though I've seen multi accounters stab their own acounts).

Okay, that's it; I am formally charging the player(s) in question of multi-accounting and/or unfair metagaming.

After opening this thread I sent the following to England, Russia and Turkey:

“I find your lack of communication strange and even stranger is the very tight co-operation you seem to have with [R/T/E] and [R/T/E]. Is it possible that two of you or possibly all three agreed on an alliance before the game? If so, do you find that fair without informing the other players?

If this is not the case apologize for being suspicous.”

None of them have replied.

I took a snapshot of the game info before going to bed last night and then their last login times where these:

England: Last logged in: Fri 01 AM
Turkey: Last logged in Fri 10 AM
Russia: Last logged in Fri 10 AM

This morning last login times are:

England: Last logged in: 04:40 AM
Turkey: Last logged in: 04:33 AM
Russia: Last logged in: 04:28 AM

I think there is no doubt any more.

Can a moderator please investigate the following accounts?

http://phpdiplomacy.net/profile.php?userID=14998
http://phpdiplomacy.net/profile.php?userID=15111
http://phpdiplomacy.net/profile.php?userID=14991

I also find this account suspicious as it has the same name as one of the above except for the numbers at the end:

http://phpdiplomacy.net/profile.php?userID=14902

I hope I have followed proper procedure in this.

Thanks.

Your challenge is going to be in the fact that you took it over CD. The alliance may be so strong that you are just plain screwed and that's part of the game. You come in the middle and you sometimes can't break a strong alliance that has done well all game.

I don't agree, Draugnar. There are absolutely no messages from any of these countries to either me or the player I took over from. No attempt to feel out the direction my country was taking.

I say it's cheating.

One of the players in the game (Russia) was just banned. I don't know if this was due to this thread, but I welcome it.

I checked it out. Turns out you were right about at least two of them, and possibly the third. It uncovered a major string of multi accounters, and I went ahead and banned the most obvious links. In no particular order their UserIDs are
14991, 15054, 14997, 16075, 14902, 15111, 14998, 15714, 14955, 15715

Justice!

Thanks, Chrispminis.

Chrisp, this seems to be becoming a weekly, if not daily occurence...

How can you have one if you dont know who is playing?